Ex-Navy SEAL casts new doubt on MAGA Senate candidate's war wound story
A MAGA Senate candidate's story of being shot during a firefight in Afghanistan — already facing swirling questions after reports that he told police he shot himself in the arm at Glacier National Park — is again facing scrutiny as two people reportedly came forward and disputed his account.
Tim Sheehy is a former Navy SEAL officer who served from 2008 to 2014 and was deployed to conflict zones in Iraq and Afghanistan. He earned the Bronze Star with Valor and the Purple Heart. Now, he's trying to unseat the Democratic incumbent Sen. Jon Tester in a closely watched Montana race.
Two people who had close interactions with Sheehy during key moments in his Afghanistan story talked to The New York Times about the gunshot wound story.
Dave Madden, a former SEAL colleague of Sheehy, told the newspaper he and the MAGA Republican were close before they deployed — and that Sheehy never told him about any gunshot wound. To boot, Madden said Sheehy almost certainly would have as they talked often about their deployment.
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Additionally, park ranger Kim Peach told the Times he spoke with Sheehy at the hospital when he was injured in the state and that Sheehy told him he shot himself in the arm on accident and even gave Peach the revolver with a spent round.
"I am 100 percent sure he shot himself that day,” Peach told the Times.
Separately, Peach told The Washington Post that in more than 35 seasons of working as a ranger at the park, he remembers just two incidents of being called for gunfire, and both were memorable. Peach said he's become angry that Sheehy won't tell the truth about the story.
“The truth isn’t complicated,” he said.
The decorated war veteran has said he was hit, possibly by friendly fire, by a ricochet bullet during a 2012 firefight. The story has faced increased scrutiny after the Washington Post revealed Sheehy told officials he shot himself in the arm three years later when he accidentally discharged a gun in the national park. At the time, he told the newspaper that was a "lie" he'd made up to "protect himself and his former platoonmates from facing a potential military investigation into an old bullet wound."